Background
In today’s medical world, bone fractures and injuries are
becoming an extremely common entity with the evolution of competitive sports
and growing population. When it comes to these types of injuries and fractures,
there are several types of processes that are used to help heal the bone or
make it grow back to original form. Methods such as surgery and casting are a
few to name off the bat, but there is one method in particular that is being
looked at as a more viable and feasible treatment option to bone fractures,
especially nonunion fractures, which is the type of fracture that does not heal
all the way. The process is known as bone growth stimulation, which uses pulsed
electromagnetic fields (PEMF’s), and has been understood to help heal bones
since the 1950’s especially nonunion fractures (Bassett, 1989)
Affected Audiences
When it comes to
bone growth stimulators, multiple audiences come to light, considering the
impact it has in peoples’ lives, such as business or well-being. One audience
that this product might have an effect on his medical doctors. When assessing a
fracture for a patient, a doctor must figure out the best overall treatment
option he can give to that person. It is also in the patient’s best interest
that their doctor proposes the least risky option. An example of this is when
someone comes to a doctor with a broken bone, and they must figure out if
casting or surgery is the best way to make the bone heal better. Both of these
methods propose the risk of infection, so a doctor must decide if he or she
wants to use the bone growth stimulator as the lone treatment, or use it
complimentary with another, which is commonly seen in prognostic decisions
involving nonunion bone fractures (Orthofix, 2010). Other audiences are the patients
themselves. If plenty of research is done on bone growth stimulators and made
available to people out there, then they always have the option of telling
their caretaker the type of method they want done to help their injury heal.
Patients always need to be made aware of the risk that they are taking with the
treatment they decide to receive, and bone growth stimulators can help ease the
mind somewhat because of its low risks. Lastly, medical device salesmen can be a huge audience when pertaining to this product. They
are the ones who travel from hospital to hospital, bringing about the knowledge
and the procedural usage of bone growth stimulators, and how they can be made
available to doctors easily and at what situations that they could be used the
best. If a medical device salesmen knows bone growth stimulators very well,
they can be extremely successful, hence their importance as being a stakeholder
of this product (Orthofix, 2010)
Related Topics
Bone Growth
Stimulators have quite a few of audiences that they affect, but there is also issues
that are related to the bone growth stimulators that come into play with this
product as well. Sub-issues such as insurance availability, product cost, bone
growth anatomy and physiology exist with this product and can impose problems
and advancements for future situations. First off, medical insurance costs in
today’s society are on the rise (National Conference of State Legislatures,
2012). If companies can’t afford to have the stimulators available, then the
product won’t be available for patient use. Same thing goes for the insurance
premiums that patients have to pay for medical insurance. With increased
insurance premiums in today’s economy, it may make the availability of bone
growth stimulators less and less feasible to injured people. Not all sub issues
give problems, however. As the physiology of bone growth is more and more
understood, as well as the process of growing new bone after it has been
broken, researchers can begin to improve the way the bone growth stimulators
target the right areas and promote the best possible growth for injured
patients. The medical field is all about advancement, and if we try to expand
our knowledge at the core levels, then we may start to see improvements on the
large levels.
Conclusion
As originally
proposed, this research plan is to look deep into the cracks of this medical
device, and how it can become known to the public as a safe and affordable
option for nonunion bone fractures. Digging into its history and unearthing the
actual ways it heals bone from a scientific standpoint can be a good way to get
the knowledge out and help any negative sub issues that persist. Also, researching
all the different types of bone fractures and finding out if the bone growth
stimulator can help out with other fractures, and not just nonunion fractures
can help negative sub issues as well. In
general terms, this research plan’s goal is to promote advancement of bone
growth stimulators in all phases of the medical community.
